And that brought him into conflict with al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate and the English-language magazine purportedly published by it, which encouraged Muslims to turn American streets into death-dealing monster truck rallies.

Inspire magazine’s second issue, published last summer, was all about convincing U.S. Muslims to do whatever they could locally for the jihad. One suggestion: constructing an “ultimate mowing machine” — tricking out a pickup truck by welding “blades” to the grill, to “mow down the enemies of Allah.”

Baroque proposals like that fuel speculation in national security circles that Inspire may be the work of a western security service — a spoof on terrorist propaganda, rather than an authentic vehicle for it. If so, Osama bought it hook, line and three-quarter-ton sinker.

“Bin Laden said this is something he did not endorse. He seems taken aback,” a U.S. counterterrorism official tells ProPublica. “He complains that this tactical proposal promotes indiscriminate slaughter. He says he rejects this and it is not something that reflects what al-Qaida does.”

Yes, Osama bin Laden, mastermind of 9/11, leader of an organization that has killed thousands of people — mostly Muslims — worldwide, thinks ramming people with a blade-enhanced truck like the T-1000 guest-starring in Road Warrior represents “indiscriminate slaughter.” It’s beneath al-Qaida’s dignity. It might be too much to expect one of his documents to explain why flying planes packed with people into crowded office buildings isn’t indiscriminate slaughter.

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